


the high road

by hiza-chan (callunavulgari)



Series: Facts That Matter [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Derogatory Language, FTM verse, Gen, Genderqueer Character, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Underage Drinking, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-10
Updated: 2014-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-15 07:50:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1297117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/hiza-chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Riku’s good at not being intimidated, but he’s definitely no good at being confused. (Or: Five times Riku noticed Axel.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the high road

**Author's Note:**

> The companion piece to _quick to burn but pretty to look at_ , this time with 100% more Riku.

**xXx**

**1**

  
  
He wonders who told the administrators that he was good with numbers. What the fuck was an inverse function?  
  
Riku’s good at not being intimidated, but he’s got absolutely no skill at hiding confusion. He sure as hell doesn’t understand how to find the domain of anything.  
  
So instead of acting like the piping-hot math whiz that everyone expects, he just sits quietly in the back of the classroom with the senior burn-outs, and pretends that he isn’t a home sick freshman, longing for the beach and his friends, and even the stupid fishy smell of everything. The air in Twilight tastes like dust, and makes him thirsty and cold at the same time.  
  
He’s sitting next to a blond girl who smells like the air before a thunderstorm, and trying not to watch as the redheaded boy beside her nonchalantly slips his hand up her skirt.  
  
“Axel, get off of me, you flying faggot.”  
  
“I’m just trying to see if we wear the same size, Larx-"  
  
But then she drives her fist into his crotch with the force of a falling brick. Axel curls in on himself like a dead ant and falls out of his chair. Riku has to bite fiercely into the end of his pen to not burst with laughter, but the teacher doesn’t even notice that Axel is rolling around underneath the desks with one hand pressed protectively over his crotch and his other hand fumbling with the strap of the girl’s sandal. When she starts to kick back at him, Axel scoots underneath Riku’s desk and leans back against his legs, kicking back at her with equal vigor. The desks between them shudder noiselessly. When Axel grips Riku’s thigh to try and get better leverage, Riku twitches and slams his hands against the tabletop of the desk, sending his pen sailing to the floor.  
  
When they get bored of assaulting each other and Riku’s gotten quite a few odd looks from nearby students who’ve noticed that there’s a boy sitting between his legs instead of at his desk, Axel picks up Riku’s forgotten pen and clicks it a few times experimentally. He then begins to unscrew the top and Riku can’t really see what’s going on, but he resists the urge to duck his head under the desk and ask.  
  
The bell rings suddenly with a shrill whine, and the entire class shifts to the door in seconds. Riku moves to get up, but a hand springs up between his legs, offering his seemingly untouched pen back to him. He hesitates, but then plucks the pen from those thin, white fingers. Axel scrambles out from under the desks, grabs his bag, and chases after Larxene and his other slacker friends before Riku can say anything else.  
  
Riku gazes at the pen, tries to click it, but the top ends rattles impotently, like someone’s removed the spring from the inside.  
  
Riku’s good at not being intimidated, but he’s definitely no good at being confused.  
  
  


**xXx**

**2**

  
  
For some reason, Zexion expects Riku to know how to roll a joint.  
  
Riku’s doesn’t even smoke cigarettes, but he and Sora used to watch their surfer buddies light up underneath the docks, and took experimental hits before they chased after the rolling blue waves like dogs in heat. Weed is a lot less interesting without Sora around, he thinks demurely, fumbling idly with the edges of the thin rolling paper. Everything is a lot less interesting without Sora around, but this is the first real party he’s been invited to since he moved here, even if Zexion weirds him out a little, he’s the only guy in physics that seems to know what he’s doing, even if it’s because he’s snorting Ritalin in between bells.  
  
Of course, now he’s sitting in some guy’s dark basement with a cold beer wedged between his kneecaps and a poor excuse of a joint slipping out of his fingers.  
  
Eventually someone notices that Riku doesn’t know what he’s doing and he’s set free to roam around the lower level of the house sipping at his beer pensively. There are a lot of older people here, some who probably didn’t even go to their high school, but no one gives him any issues about his age; after all, being fifteen entitles a certain social awkwardness that can be ignored easily, especially in the presence of alcohol. So Riku just chills and grabs another drink. Zexion is still within sight; he and some older guy are talking to Axel, who is suspiciously losing more articles of clothing every time he catches Riku’s line of sight. It’s not like he cares or anything.  
  
A few hours later, when the basement is clouded with smoke and all the beer has gone tepid, Riku drains the last of his fourth or fifth beer and decides to call it a night. He finds his way out of the basement and upstairs and can see the exit, but is cut off unexpectedly by a thoroughly intoxicated Axel wearing nothing but a pair of _really_ tight jeans that have “BAD ASS” sequined on the back pockets.  
  
“Hey, you. Have you seen Larxy? She stole my clothes and I have to wear hers…” he slurs out, blinking vapidly and desperately trying to stand up straight. “…ass like a third grader. My balls are killing me.”  
  
Riku’s not quick enough to catch him when his green eyes flutter shut and he crumples to the floor. But, because Axel’s not too heavy for being freakishly tall, Riku drags him to the bathroom, and props him up against the bathtub. Then after a second, Riku steadily unzips the borrowed jeans and slides them down just enough so that the denim stops cutting into Axel’s pristinely white hips. His eyes linger on the boy stretched out in front of him.  
  
_I’m helping him out. This is what guys do for each other at parties_ , Riku thinks resolutely as he lazily brushes a hand over the trail of fine dark hair that leads down to…  
  
Axel splutters a little in his sleep, and knocks Riku’s hand off his stomach, which is enough of a sign for Riku to split. He makes sure that the toilet-seat is lifted up for any preemptive nausea and shuts the door softly behind him. When he finally gets out into the chilly, night air, Riku has this vicious, nagging vibe to talk to someone, so he pulls out his phone. He scrolls through his contact list, but his fingers hover indecisively over the green send button. It’s one-fifteen on a school night, the cool air is stemming with the dust of snow, and Riku’s not really sure where he is.  
  
Flipping his phone shut and slipping it back into the pocket of his coat, Riku chews thoughtfully on his bottom lip and tries to figure out which direction he should start walking to get to the tram station.  
  
He’ll call Sora in the morning.  
  
  


**xXx**

**3**

  
  
The city is too fucking cold. The city is too fucking cold. The city is _too. Fucking. Cold._  
  
But Axel thinks they had it off in that guy —Marly’s—bathroom. Why else would he wink like that?  
  
And the cute redhead from homeroom Riku had been making sexy-eyes at all week was his sister?  
  
_Jesus_. He needed some coffee and he needed to forget that Kairi and Axel wore the same jeans.  
  
  


**xXx**

**4**

  
  
Riku’s not really sure why Zexion insists on bringing him along to his dealer’s, but he thinks it might have to do with the six inch gap in their height and the newly-discovered notion that Riku had the capacity to look menacing. He’s met Vexen before though, and he looks about as threatening as a wet sponge. Riku wonders why Zexion would need to look menacing to the guy he’s been buying a shitload of pills from for the last seven months, but the shorter boy just clams up and folds his arms against his chest. The elevator up to the guy’s apartment rattles and whines around them, and Riku could deck the lazy asshole in front of him for not wanting to walk up three flights of stairs. He’s already regretting this.  
  
When the elevator doors tremble open on the third floor, Zexion looks on the verge of jumping out of his skin; it takes him a few seconds to shuffle out of the elevator, angrily muttering to himself and blinking like mad.  
  
Riku unwillingly follows Zexion as he veers down the hallway and begins banging on the last door to the left. Riku wants to drag the guy by the neck of his hoodie into the nearest stairwell and send him cartwheeling down to the bottom floor, but the door swings open to reveal a familiar redhead wearing a bubblegum pink robe and a pair of cropped orange sweatpants. Axel’s eye’s eyes go wide when he sees Riku, but then he sees Zexion and his brow falls into a deep furrow.  
  
“Nice robe.” Zexion spits out.  
  
“Thanks. It was my mother’s. Hi Riku.” Axel says with false cheer around the cigarette clenched between his lips. Riku just blinks. “What do you want.”  
  
“You’re so fucked up. I left something here.” Zexion elbows his way past Axel and disappears inside the apartment. Then the information clicks together like lost puzzle pieces, and Riku wants to scream. This is supposed to be a quick drug run. Zexion promised him that when he asked him to come, but he is not watching _Vexen_ chase after Zexion as he rummages through his couch cushions. They share a steady stream of heated, vicious whispers as they circle around Axel’s apartment and it’s almost too clear what’s going on ; they’re doing the post- booty-call tango of manners because Zexion dropped his stash here last night, sometime in between getting laid and meeting Riku for chem lab.  
  
And though he blindly hopes that he's _totally wrong,_ Riku knows he’s not because Zexion has disappeared into the bedroom and Axel looks ready to set something on fire. He sucks harder on his cigarette, and clutches a fistful of pink satin against his thigh. Riku tries to distract himself by poking at a dismal-looking plant on the windowsill, but the words fall out his mouth like change out of a billfold.  
  
“You know, we didn’t actually do anything at that party a while ago,” he unwillingly says, and leans against a bookcase that doesn’t really have any books in it. For what he lacks in tact, he makes up for with his good looks- that’s what Selphie used to tell him- so, he smiles for good measure and hopes Axel doesn’t feel inclined to set him on fire instead of Zexion. “You passed out, and I left you in the bathroom.”  
  
The look of anger drops off of Axel’s face, and at the bare minimum, Riku considers it a small victory. Axel looks dumbfounded until he really takes the initiative to look into Riku’s eyes, and suddenly it’s green versus green between the hazy smoke of his dying cigarette.  
  
Axel finally stutters out, “What? Oh. Okay.” It’s not really relief on his face, but Riku can tell that the other boy is at least a little bit reassured about not having two one-night-stands hanging out in his apartment at once. He even manages a stiff smile as he crushes the cigarette in a sea-shell ashtray and lights another.  
  
“Why do you only have a shit-ton of orange juice and half a bottle of peppermint schnapps in your fridge?” Zexion calls abruptly from the kitchen. Axel’s face heats up again and he’s squawking about boundaries of intimacy and unwanted distractions from Mario ’64 while shoving the two of them back into the hallway and locking the door behind them. Zexion mutters something incoherent about taking the high road and wishing he could have used the bathroom as he presses the down arrow beside the elevator door. But Zexion’s always muttering about something or other, so Riku doesn’t bother to wait and listen, and finds the door to the stairwell instead.  
  
  


**xXx**

**5**

  
  
The pawn shop must be empty, because he can hear Axel coughing and spluttering and the scent of weed is just distinguishable amongst the heavy scent of dust and old lady perfume.  
  
“Hey,” he says as he catches sight of Axel sitting behind the counter, squishing out a roach and waving his hands around wildly as he tries to catch his breath. For some reason, he’s wearing a violet, pleated dress shirt with the arms cut off and a long string of rose-tinted pearls, and though it all kind of clashes with his vibrant, red hair, Riku adds, “Purple’s a good color on you.”  
  
“Ya think?” Axel wheezes out and rubs his hands over his face to hide the silly grin that slides onto his face.  
  
“Totally. Can I buy a forty?” Riku pinches the folded bills between his fingers and flashes them at Axel, who struggles to straighten up in his seat. He picks up a pair of smudged horn-rimmed glasses and sets them on the bridge of his nose, looking like a silly, stoned business man.  
  
“Sure as teacups, bro.” Axel hops off of his stool and wobbles unsteadily for a few seconds before disappearing underneath the counter.  
  
Riku sighs contentedly, leans against the glass counter, and gives the shop a quick once-over as Axel fusses out of sigh. The place looks like a retirement home-themed novelty store, complete with shelves of tacky porcelain figurines and a bunch of doily-inspired furniture pieces. “My best friend and his brother are coming up from the Islands for a week,” He offers amiably, “It’s gonna be wicked.”  
  
“When they gettin’ here?” Axel quips, his voice muffled by the display case of decrepit jewelry.  
  
“Tomorrow.”  
  
“You know,” Axel pops back into sight with an unholy handful of dried unmentionables and starts plucking a few choice nugs from his palm and dropping them into a plastic baggie. “Demyx is having a shin-dig at his place tomorrow night. You should drag them along; give ‘em a real taste of the suburban-city limit.”  
  
“Yeah, definitely.” Riku says with a wide grin “Are you going?”  
  
“Yeah, he roped me into it,” he sighs dramatically, “But, Demyx’s boyfriend is a bartender at No-Town. He does all these awesome flair tricks, and he said he would teach me how spit fire and shit, if, you know, Dem doesn’t jump him for his cock first.” He smirks idly and winds the little bag shut. “There ya go.”  
  
Riku gives his thanks, pockets the bag, and makes for the door. But before he edges out of sight, he sneaks a look behind him. Axel’s half-halfheartedly singing “Tom Sawyer” underneath his breath and rolling another joint; the pearls hanging from his neck keep slipping in the way of his busy fingers and he curses occasionally, but doesn’t bother flicking them out of the way. He looks away before Axel notices and feels obligated to recount his recent revelations on the merit of _Legend of Zelda_ , and reaches for the door handle. Riku can’t help but to smile and shake his head, as if he were brushing off an incomplete, half-hopeful, _what-if_ kind of thought, and starts counting the minutes before Sora and Roxas will show up at his front door.


End file.
